The dream among West Coast port operators for a boom in coal exports is fading. Big plans for building coal terminals from Cherry Point, Wash., to Oakland have dissipated in the face of broad global trends and fierce local opposition, the WSJ’s Timothy Puko and Erica E. Phillips report, highlighting the way changes in energy markets are roiling shipping operations. None of the seven West Coast export terminals that have been proposed in the past five years have opened, and coal companies are in a swift and economically painful retrenchment. Among the casualties: a proposed terminal next to the Port of Oakland that was to be funded in part by tax revenues from coal-producing Utah. Some coal operators say they aren’t giving up. But they’re facing unrelenting environmental opposition and steep economic hurdles since cheaper coal from Indonesia and Australia has undercut their push to foreign markets, changing the equation for exports.

An upheaval in China’s ride-share market could have a dramatic impact on last-mile logistics in the country. Global ride-hailing giant Uber Technologies Inc. is giving up its costly battle for China’s riders, swapping its local operations there for a minority stake in the country’s homegrown Didi Chuxing Technology Co. The WSJ’s Alyssa Abkowitz and Rick Carew report the action puts big money behind a single ride-sharing business with strong ties to e-commerce giant
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd.
BABA -2.19%
The tie-up, with Uber now taking a 20% stake in Didi, also gives the Chinese company a $36 billion valuation and a partner keen to stretch the passenger transport model into the delivery world. Uber Chief Executive Travis Kalanick said the merger allows for “bold initiatives…from self-driving technology to the future of food and logistics.” Alibaba has been one of Didi’s biggest shareholders, and the company is sure to be interested in the results of a combined Didi-Uber effort on logistics.

A shipping industry rebound isn’t coming fast and strong enough to help International Shipholding Corp. The Mobile, Ala.-based carrier is entering chapter 11 bankruptcy protection after scrambling to sell off pieces of its business to pay creditors while keeping its profitable lines running, the WSJ’s Peg Brickley. The sales so far have included International Shipholding’s dry bulk business, a casualty of the commodities downturn that has roiled that wing of the shipping business. The company says its “core business segments are performing satisfactorily,” including Jones Act domestic transport of cars, trucks and other vehicles, as well as a rail-ferry business. The company lost $8.4 million in the first quarter this year, following a loss of nearly $180 million last year. International Shipholding has cut its debt in half in less than two years, but it looks like returns even in its money-making lines aren’t strong enough to satisfy debt holders.

ECONOMY & TRADE

The former Oakland Army Base pier across from the Port of Oakland.
Photo:
Eric Risberg/Associated Press

The U.S. factory sector is offering a narrow glimmer of hope for future shipping demand. The Institute for Supply Management measure of manufacturing activity slipped back to 52.6 in July, but the WSJ’s Ben Leubsdorf writes that it remained in growth territory and that other signals of manufacturing demand were also expanding—but at a slower pace than the month before. The report underscores the lukewarm state of the industrial sector that has left transport and logistics companies that serve factories looking more to consumer trade for more serious growth. The pace of growth in the New Orders and Production segments of the ISM slowed a bit in July, but the bigger concern continues to be stockpiles. ISM says inventories overall expanded in July but inventories at industries counting raw materials reported slimming stocks, a signal that those industrial producers don’t expect to speed up their pace of production in coming months.

QUOTABLE

“
If one of these ports got approved tomorrow, they could have the option of losing $10 a ton selling more coal.
”